Design and Fabrication: Harvest Moon

hank you for coming back to check out my latest post! Today, I will be sharing some of the finer details on my Harvest Moon Earrings.

There are many things that inspire me while designing new pieces. Take these earrings for example, they were inspired by my favorite season, Autumn and planned to be demonstration piece for my cold connections class. “It’s" Riveting” focuses on these connections and when they are used in jewelry. This workshop allows students to plan and execute a piece using at least one of the three rivets they learned in the class. In the class, students learn how to make a standard, tube, and hidden rivet.

After sketching and choosing the pair of earrings that will best represent my class. I textured the copper using a cross pein hammer and cut out the fence using a jewelers saw. Next, I used my template to cut out each sterling silver circle. The bezel was soldered onto the sterling silver backing. During this process it is important for all components to be filed and sanded before assembly. Now, the process of riveting can begin I used a flex shaft/drill press to drill each hole in the piece and each rivet was hand cut then filed to size. One by one rivets were added to the earrings using a riveting hammer and anvil. This pair of earrings features both standard and hidden rivets which take time to fine-tune and correct.

Please take a look at some of my process photo’s below!

#silversmithing #handcrafted #artist #process #owls #earrings